


Lord and Lady of Miselthwaite

by ami_ven



Category: A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 04:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19124278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: “My first thought was that this house was just theperfectsetting for a story.”





	Lord and Lady of Miselthwaite

“Do you know what I thought, the first time I saw this house?” asked Sara, one night.

Her husband looked up from the papers he had been going over while she read, and smiled. “Oh?” said Colin. “What did you think?”

They had been the lord and lady of Miselthwaite for almost ten years now, and married for nearly thirty. Colin would forever be grateful to the Magic that had compelled him to finally agree to escort his cousin Mary to one of those ridiculous London balls, the same party to which Sara had been coaxed to attend by her adoptive uncle, Mr. Carrisford.

Colin’s father had done some business with _The Indian Gentleman_ (as he would learn to call him, on occasion) and they thought that two girls who had lived in India should be introduced. Mary and Sara were instantly friends, disappearing at once to talk by themselves.

If Colin lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the feel of Mary’s slim fingers on his wrist as she pulled him through the crowd, or his first sight of Sara, her green eyes large in her pale face.

Sara was a frequent visitor to Miselthwaite after that, and Mary developed a terrible habit of entreating her friend for a story and then sneaking out of the room once she’d begun, leaving her alone with Colin.

“I… I do apologize, Miss Crewe,” he’d stammered, the third time this had happened, but Sara had merely smiled.

“I know my reputation is safe with you, Mr. Craven,” she had replied. “I like telling stories to people who like to hear them.”

And Colin certainly liked her stories. Even when Sara told ones he’d already read, during those long lonely years when he’d believed he was dying, she made them seem new again, and he hung on her words until she came to the end or was interrupted, and they would both blink back awake to realize that Mary had left minutes or hours before.

It was Dickon, of all people, who had put the idea of courtship into their minds, with his cheerful, “Don’t th’ make a charmin’ pair?” when they met him and Mary in the (not so) secret garden.

“My first thought,” said Sara now, shaking Colin from his memories, “was that this house was just the _perfect_ setting for a story.”

Colin laughed and rose, crossing the room to pull her up and kiss her breathless. “A happy story?” he asked, when they parted far enough to breathe again.

Her smile was just as dazzling as the day he had asked her to marry him. “The happiest,” she said.

“I’ve always lived in this house,” said Colin. “But I was so ill as a child – or rather, I thought I was so ill – that I never left my room. The places I read about in my books seemed as imaginary to me as one of your stories.”

“But you did leave your room,” said Sara. “Why, you’ve shown me all around the moor and you know every inch of it.”

“Of the moor,” he agreed. “But this is only a small little corner of Yorkshire. I just… I wonder sometimes, if this is enough for you. If you wouldn’t be happier traveling the world, as Mary and Dickon do.”

“Oh, Colin,” she laughed, taking his hand again. “Mary and Dickon have their gardens and their travels. And I have you and Miselthwaite. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Colin smiled and kissed her again.

THE END


End file.
